


Turning a bad day around

by Sororising



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Body Dysphoria, Coming Out, Disability, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mention of Surgery, Swearing, There is some fluff I swear, Trans Character, Trans Steve Rogers, Transphobia, binding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 20:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7859893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sororising/pseuds/Sororising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stop apologising,” Bucky says, wishing that Steve would meet his eyes. “I mean, admittedly I have more experience in the whole <i>not</i> wanting to lose any more body parts area of life than in your sort of thing, but that doesn’t mean I can’t at least listen, right?”</p><p>Steve looks up at that, finally, with an expression of mild alarm. “I didn’t mean -”</p><p>“I know that!” Bucky cuts Steve off before he can start feeling guilty. “I was joking, I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. Not my best attempt at humour, I’ll admit.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning a bad day around

**Author's Note:**

> If by any chance you have seen my [other](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7679185/chapters/17491546) trans Steve/cis Bucky modern-day AU set in Brooklyn: this is not in that AU, apparently I just lack imagination. (I just had a bad day and wanted to write it out, is all.) This Steve is a bit of a self-insert in terms of some plot details but hopefully with his own personality still. Sorry about the giant end notes, feel free to ignore them. 
> 
> Tags are hopefully comprehensive but please let me know if you want me to add/update any!
> 
> Hope you enjoy, feedback is more than welcome <3

* * *

Sweet jesus christing hell-fuck of a - oh, shit, Bucky knows that guy.

“Hey, Steve!” he yells out, unsurprised when he gets no response. He’d been trying to shout over a crowed of extremely pissed-off New Yorkers, after all, and he’s pretty sure the couple of times he’d met Steve the guy had been wearing hearing aids.

He makes a vague attempt to move through the hordes that are still pushing their way up the stairs from the Bedford Ave tube station, where they’d all just been informed they had to get off because the L train wasn’t going any further for at least an hour, but gives up after about a second.

Holy fuck, it’s hot. He’s tempted to go down and stand inside the waiting train just for the air-con, but that seems like a waste of what’s left of his day.

He’s lost sight of Steve already, not that it matters too much. They’re barely even acquaintances; they just both happen to be friends with Sam Wilson. Still, it would have been nice to have a friendly face to complain to.

A few people around him are trying to club together to order a few taxis into Manhattan. Some brave souls have already set off walking. In the middle of August. Bucky wishes them luck, and hopes that they don’t die of heatstroke before they get to the nearest working station.

He takes out his phone, then promptly moves as far out of the way as he can before pressing anything. He’s seen thousands of people using their phones one-handed, with the other hand wrapped around a subway pole or something, but he always feels kind of paranoid that he’s going to drop the thing anyway.

He presses his third speed-dial button, hoping that his call won’t go ignored.

“Buckaroo!”

Bucky winces. “Hey, Tony.”

“It’s almost ready, I swear, maybe two more fittings after this one?”

“Gonna have to be three, ‘cause I’m not making it over to Manhattan today. The L’s down, and I’m not paying for a cab. I can come in tomorrow?”

“I could just send a car, you know,” Tony says. “But fine, fine, whatever. Gives me more time to make it absolute perfection, anyway. Not that it wasn’t already.”

“Obviously,” Bucky says dryly. “Thanks. See you at three tomorrow?”

“Show up whenever, I’ll forget either way,” Tony says, already sounding distracted. “Ooh, I think - if we tweak the rotation capability of the thumb joint just a bit, you’ll be able to - yeah, I have to go work this out, see you later!”

“Bye,” Bucky says to the already-dead line. He’s not even going to pretend to be annoyed. Tony is a - unique sort of person, and his brusque manner does put some people off him, but if you look past that to the socially awkward, generous-to-a-fault guy underneath, you won’t regret it.

Plus, he’s the guy that’s going to make it possible for Bucky to have a prosthetic arm that does more than sit there and be vaguely itchy, so there’s that. Bucky would forgive a hell of a lot of minor personality flaws if it meant he’d be able to hold a plate and a fork at the same time.

“Hi, Bucky,” a voice says beside him, making him jump and clutch his phone to his chest.

“Jesus Christ. Um, hi, Steve. Sorry.”

Steve looks embarrassed. “No, my bad. I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you. I just saw you and thought I’d come say, well, hi.”

“Yeah, I actually shouted at you before. Saw you coming up from the train, figured you were going to walk from here.”

Steve scrunches up his nose. Bucky immediately tells himself that the expression isn’t even the slightest bit cute. It isn’t a very convincing attempt.

“I probably should,” he says. “At least to Metropolitan, I could transfer from there. But it’s so hot, and I don’t - I’d rather just cancel my plans and head home, to be honest.”

Steve is standing kind of weirdly, Bucky notices suddenly. He’s hunched over, making him seem even shorter than he actually is.

“You okay?” Bucky asks.

“What? I’m fine. Why?”

Steve sounds more than a little defensive, which makes Bucky feel bad. 

“Sorry,” he says. “You looked like you might be feeling sick or something, is all. I feel like I’m being boiled alive in my own sweat, just wanted to check in.”

“What a charming image,” Steve says in a beautifully sarcastic voice. “I really appreciate that.”

Bucky isn’t sure where to go from here. “Hey, um,” he finds himself saying, with no idea of what’s going to leave his mouth next. “You want to grab a drink or something? Since neither of us are going to make it to Manhattan today.” 

Steve doesn’t answer immediately, which makes Bucky start to panic. Why had he said that? What had possessed him? They barely know each other; just because Bucky has some weird feeling that he wants to get to know Steve better doesn’t mean it’s mutual.

“Or you can just head home, obviously,” he adds in a hurry. 

“No, no. I - yeah, sure. Let’s find somewhere with air-con,” Steve says, and while it isn’t exactly a leaping-with-joy kind of response, it’s not a rejection either.

“Excellent plan,” Bucky says with relief. He’s pretty sure the material of his t-shirt is gluing itself to his left armpit right now. Deodorant isn’t easy to apply when half the skin is broken up by rough scar tissue. Not one of the most glamorous aspects of a war wound, Bucky thinks wryly. Wonder why they don’t put that in the inspiration-porn articles about injured soldiers.

They walk about a block before they find somewhere that isn’t either overcrowded or overpriced. And it has air-con, which would have sold Bucky even if the coffee had been ten dollars, so they quickly decide not to bother looking anywhere further.

Bucky gets a iced cinnamon latte, ignoring the barista’s raised eyebrows when he opens his wallet neatly with his teeth, and makes a very short-lived offer to pay for Steve’s strawberry milkshake.

“I only meant because I asked you,” he says, only stopping himself from adding the word _out_ to the sentence at the last second.

“I can buy my own drink,” Steve says in a very final tone. It definitely doesn’t sound like it’s the first time he’s said it.

“Sure, sorry,” Bucky says. “Want me to save that table with the armchairs?”

“Sounds good,” Steve says with a quick flash of a smile. Hopefully that means Bucky’s forgiven.

He isn’t going to think too hard about the fact that he really doesn’t want Steve to be mad at him. This is only their third interaction; he isn’t going to get his hopes up for - well, for anything. Or, maybe he is, but only his hopes that he might make a new friend. 

More than friendship would be - well, he’s not going to start thinking about it, so it doesn’t matter what it would be.

They settle into their chairs, and Bucky takes a long drink of his excellent icy-sugary concoction, finally feeling like he doesn’t want to jump into the Arctic ocean.

“So, ah. How’ve you been?” he asks Steve, not quite sure what the protocol is for making small talk with someone you instinctively like a lot even though you know almost nothing about them.

“Not bad, yeah,” Steve says, and Bucky notices that he has a tiny milk-moustache on his upper lip. He should probably be ashamed of himself for finding it cute, he thinks vaguely.

“Seen Sam recently?”

It had been Sam that had put Bucky in touch with Tony Stark, who had needed volunteers to trial the new range of prosthetic limbs he had been working on with the engineers who’d used to run the now-defunct weapons division of Stark Industries.

It’s not unironic, but Bucky’s getting a new arm out of it - for free, as well - so he doesn’t care too much. If anything, he’s impressed with Tony turning his back on a family legacy. The two of them have become very unlikely friends over the last couple of months, actually, which has been another - very - unexpected benefit of the trials.

“Yeah, we went out for drinks the other night,” Steve says. “This little bar in Williamsburg.”

Bucky hums to himself and takes another sip of his drink. “Cool. Hey, how do you guys know each other, anyway?”

Steve looks suddenly uncomfortable. “I can’t really say?”

Well, that’s cryptic.

“Right,” Bucky says, not sure how he’s supposed to respond. “No worries.”

Christ, he hopes Steve isn’t feeling as awkward as he is right now.

He notices that Steve is still hunching over, even though he’s sat in - if it’s anything like Bucky’s - a very comfy armchair.

“You sure you’re okay?” Bucky asks, knowing that he probably shouldn’t but unable to stop himself.

Steve glances up quickly, with an expression on his face that Bucky has no idea how to begin reading.

“Not having the best day, to be honest,” Steve says, and Bucky might be imagining it but he thinks that Steve looks surprised, as though he had been planning on saying he was fine yet again.

“Sorry to hear that. We don’t have to talk about it. I mean, obviously. Or you can if you want to, if it might help.”

What the hell. Bucky feels like he’s forgotten how to string words together in a coherent sentence. Or any kind of sentence, really.

“You don’t even know me,” Steve says, his words coming out more than a little aggressively.

“Well, yeah. But I’d like to?”

Jesus. He’s reliving his tenth-grade attempt to ask out the most popular girl in the year all over again.

“I, um. I have a heart condition,” Steve says, not meeting Bucky’s eyes. “Well, more than one, I guess. And asthma, and also my blood pressure likes to flake out on me at random moments.”

Steve pauses, and Bucky isn’t sure if that’s all he’d wanted to say or he’s just collecting his thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, with absolutely no idea if that’s the right response.

Steve looks up at him blankly for a moment.

“What? Oh, no, that wasn’t what I was saying. I mean, yeah, I have all those things, and a load of other medical issues. But that’s not why I’m - y’know, feeling down today.”

Oh. Okay then. Bucky nods, hopefully in an encouraging way. He’s still processing the fact that Steve is dealing with all that on a daily basis but that apparently there’s something even worse to follow.

“I just mentioned those ones because, well, added together they make it a pretty bad idea for me to wear clothes that constrict my, um, chest,” Steve continues. “And, basically, my doctor told me to stop wearing my binder, especially when it’s this hot out, unless I want to ‘wind up in hospital’ for the thousandth time.”

Steve’s little air quotes on _wind up in hospital_ don’t make it sound like an exaggeration, although that might have been what he was going for. They actually sound like they might have been a direct quote from his doctor, which is a very scary thought.

He hasn’t missed the fact that Steve is looking fiercely defensive, and Bucky really doesn’t want to say anything wrong. But at the same time, he knows he needs to respond with _something,_ and he can’t figure out a way to get across what he wants Steve to hear from him.

“That - must be horrible,” he tries, knowing the words are inadequate even as he says them. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine.”

Steve shrugs, then hunches over even more than he had been doing. Bucky doesn’t glance down at his chest. He has no idea if the two things are comparable in the slightest, but he doesn’t love when people stare at what’s left of his left arm, and he has no desire to make Steve even more uncomfortable than he already looks.

“It’s fine,” Steve says, still staring at his milkshake rather than looking at Bucky. “Well, not really, but whatever. Sorry, you didn’t need to know any of that.”

“Hey, I asked,” Bucky says, though he’s feeling guilty for accidentally starting them on this conversation. He’d wanted them to have a nice, easy chat about what was going on in their lives, maybe commiserate a bit over how bad Brooklyn’s starting to smell in the constant heat, and then - in theory - by the end of their talk, he’d have been feeling confident enough to ask Steve out on a date.

That’s not seeming like such a good idea anymore, not if Steve’s already having a bad day.

“I was supposed to be going to some speed-dating thing this afternoon. I’m kind of glad the train was down, to be honest. I don’t think I can talk to people without my binder on.”

Bucky had noticed that Steve was wearing a few more layers than seemed sensible in this heatwave. He knows why now, at least, not that it’s really any better now that he has an explanation.

He doesn’t point out that Steve is talking to him just fine, but he can’t help but make a mental note of it.

“I don’t know if this helps or not,” he says, hoping he isn’t about to put his foot in his mouth. “But I would never have guessed anything if you hadn’t told me.”

It’s true; Bucky hadn’t had any idea that Steve was trans from their previous meetings. 

“It’s not about that,” Steve says, sounding tired. “I don’t - I’m not really a fan of the term _passing,_ you know? Like, there’s some kind of weird cis standard I’m supposed to meet, or whatever. It’s not about other people for me.” He takes a sip of his milkshake. “Anymore, at least,” he adds, and the way he says it makes Bucky certain that there’s a story there.

Steve looks like he’s blinking slightly too fast, and Bucky wishes - for what feels like the tenth time since they started this conversation - that he could magically think of the right words to make him feel better. Even though he suspects that they most likely don’t exist.

“It’s just - I hate them so much,” Steve says, in a small, miserable voice that Bucky immediately decides he never wants to hear again. “I’ve got really good at body positivity in general over the past few years. Like, I know I’m short and skinny, especially for a guy, and my nose is a weird shape, and, well, I’m not exactly a catch, if you’re going off physical stuff. I can deal with all that just fine.” Bucky doesn’t interrupt, no matter how much he wants to argue with half the things Steve’s saying. 

“But these?” Steve continues, glancing down at his chest with a painful look of disgust on his face. “I can’t do it. I don’t know why. I can’t make them feel like part of me, no matter how I try to think about it. I just want them to be fucking _gone,_ ” he says, voice breaking on the last word.

“Sorry,” he adds before Bucky can even make an attempt to reply. “That was way too much information.”

“Stop apologising,” Bucky says, wishing that Steve would meet his eyes so that he could hopefully pick up on the fact that Bucky really isn’t going to judge him. “I mean, admittedly I have more experience in the whole _not_ wanting to lose any more body parts area of life than in your sort of thing, but that doesn’t mean I can’t at least listen, right?”

 _Please let that not have been wildly insensitive,_ he immediately thinks, wondering if he should just have said some kind of vague platitude and left it at that.

Steve looks up at that, finally, with an expression of mild alarm. “I didn’t mean -”

Yeah, the platitude would have been a smarter idea.

“I know that!” Bucky cuts Steve off before he can start feeling guilty. “I was joking, I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. Not my best attempt at humour, I’ll admit.”

Steve looks relieved.

“Oh, no, I’m usually in a way better mood than this. I’d probably have laughed if you caught me on a good day. Just, the heat, you know, and everything else.”

Bucky nods, taking a long drink as soon as the memory of the blazing sun outside comes back to him. “Not a problem. I’m an alright person to vent to, or so I’ve been told.”

“Can I ask you something?” 

Bucky nods automatically.

“You don’t seem to mind that I’m trans,” Steve says, and Bucky notices that his posture seems more relaxed than it had been a few minutes ago. Then his expression tenses up again. “Wait, Sam -”

“Sam didn’t tell me,” Bucky says, surprised that Steve would have thought that for a second. Sam is basically - well, he’s the polar opposite of the kind of person who would go around outing anyone. 

Actually, now Bucky thinks about it, he’s guessing that the reason Steve was so cagey about how he and Sam met might be because it had been at some kind of LGBTQ event. He can’t think of any other explanation, and that one would make a lot of sense.

God, being queer is a fucking minefield sometimes. He’s so ready for the day when everyone can just be open about things like this without worrying about any kind of negative reaction.

Steve looks embarrassed. “I knew he wouldn’t have. I just get a bit paranoid, you know?”

“Were you expecting me to mind?”

Bucky isn’t going to be offended if Steve says yes. Okay, he’s going to try to not be offended, or at least not to let it show. Almost the same thing.

“Not you specifically,” Steve says, and Bucky feels bad that Steve is clearly trying to reassure him. “Just, I don’t really know you, and I usually prepare for the worst just in case.”

Bucky frowns. That seems like a bit of a pessimistic way to live.

“I know it sounds bad,” Steve adds. “But it’s actually a good way to look at things, if you think about it. If someone reacts badly, I’m already prepared, and if they’re like you, then I’m pleasantly surprised.”

Bucky can kind of see Steve’s point, but it seems like a bit of a stretch to say that it’s a _good_ way to look at things. Maybe it’s the best way to go about your day, from a practical point of view, but despite everything that’s happened to him in his life Bucky prides himself on still managing to stay mostly optimistic.

“I guess,” he says noncommittally.

Steve laughs quietly, and Bucky is immediately alarmed by how much he wants to hear that sound again.

“We can agree to disagree, hey?”

“Sure. Um, can I ask you something?”

Steve looks wary, which makes Bucky wonder what kind of questions usually follow someone making that request.

“So long as it’s not about my genitals, my birth name, or if I feel bad about betraying women by turning my back on them, then sure, go ahead,” Steve says, not sounding even slightly at ease anymore.

Jesus Christ. Well, that answers Bucky’s previous thought. What the actual fuck is wrong with people?

“It’s nothing - people seriously ask you those things?”

“Those are some very edited highlights, yeah.”

“Oh my god.”

Not his most eloquent response, but he’s not going to blame himself for that. 

“Want to hear the best one?”

Steve’s voice is very clearly implying that _best_ actually means _worst._

Bucky isn’t sure how to respond to that.

“Only if you want to tell me?”

“A couple weeks ago a co-worker who I thought I was kind of friends with asked me if I wanted phalloplasty - bottom surgery, I mean - and when I said no he said he knew I was just pretending to be trans, because there was no way a real guy wouldn’t want an actual dick.”

“Fucking hell,” Bucky says, feeling like his mind has gone almost blank with anger as soon as he’s processed the words. “What a fucking _asshole._ Did you report him? Did he get fired?”

He regrets asking straightaway, because he can already tell that the answer is going to be a no, just from Steve’s face.

“Wouldn’t have done any good,” Steve says, confirming Bucky’s suspicions. “He’s the boss’s daughter’s husband. But my best friend at work, Angie, made sure he got put on the worst assignments for the next few weeks.”

“That’s something, I guess.”

Bucky knows that he sounds completely unconvinced, and that Steve will definitely be able to tell. But he can’t help it; he’s so fucking pissed off that the guy is just going to get away scot-free after saying something like that.

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve says, because he clearly has no idea how Bucky’s mind works. Well, there’s no reason he should. “Hey, you never asked your question, from before?”

Oh. That’s - a good point.

“It feels kind of weird asking now,” Bucky admits, not sure if he wants to back out or not.

“Fair enough,” Steve says, with a small smile on his face. “Can I ask you one instead, then?”

“Sure.”

Bucky isn’t really wondering about what the question will be; half his mind is hung up on trying to decide whether or not he should still try asking Steve out, and the other half is still focused on wanting to punch the living daylights out of Steve’s co-worker.

“Would you like to go to dinner with me tomorrow night?”

Ah - what?

“What?” Bucky says, even though he heard the question perfectly clearly. “I mean - yes!” Fuck. That had been about as far from smooth as it was possible to get without actually falling off his chair.

Steve is looking very amused, and even though it’s one hundred percent at Bucky’s expense, he finds he doesn’t mind at all.

“Okay, great. Is Thai good?”

“Thai is - yeah,” Bucky says, feeling very off-balance. “I was going to ask you out!”

Steve quirks one side of his mouth up in an adorable little grin.

“What a happy coincidence.”

“No need to be sarcastic. Seriously, though, I would love to.”

Bucky knows that his smile probably looks ridiculous right now, but he can’t find the energy to care even the tiniest bit. He likes people, most people - when they’re not being assholes - but he usually finds that he only connects with them in a very casual way. He has a lot of acquaintances, but very few people he would count as actual friends.

Steve is different. He feels like he knows him already, which is a strange thought. And he wants to get to know so much more, which isn’t a feeling he has about people all that often.

“Great,” Steve says again, and it occurs to Bucky that he almost definitely wasn’t the only one who had been nervous just now.

“I’ll give you my number, okay?”

He isn’t going to leave and then have to go through a horribly awkward conversation with Sam when he gets home and realises he forgot to ask Steve for a way for them to keep in touch.

“Sure,” Steve says, handing over his phone, which Bucky immediately puts down on the table before typing anything. It’s one thing to risk his own, but breaking the possessions of the guy he really wants to see again doesn’t seem like a good way to start anything good.

And Bucky really, really hopes this is going to be something good.

For both of them.

“I’m feeling a lot better now,” Steve says suddenly. “So, y’know. Thanks.”

“I didn’t do much. But you’re welcome. I’m really glad I ran into you.”

“Same here. Even if Sam is going to make fun of us both for the next month or so.”

Bucky says something that sounds like a vague agreement in reply, too stuck on the fact that Steve had said _the next month_ so casually, as though it was a given that they would be seeing each other for at least that long, to pay much attention to the actual words.

He’s going on a date. With Steve. Who asked him out, which now Bucky thinks about it is a hundred times better than it happening the other way. This way he knows for sure that Steve really wants to date him, and he isn’t going to start second-guessing everything about their conversation.

He isn’t overthinking anything at all, actually, he realises with mild surprise. He’s just - happy.

Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This is such a self-indulgent fic. Like, everything I write is partly for other people, partly for me, and the balance changes every time. This is pretty much just for me and my (temporary don’t worry!) sad feels that I don’t have someone I can talk to like Steve does here.
> 
> Also!! (for those who might relate to poor Steve): The medical stuff is actually an issue for me (I have the heart conditions/blood pressure issues but not the asthma; I also have anxiety which makes my chest feel tight sometimes, don't know how much is psychosomatic or not but that doesn’t actually matter in practice because it still means I can only wear a binder occasionally these days). If anyone else that might like to wear a binder but can’t for any reason at all/don’t have access/wouldn’t be able to hide it etc etc, I have found some success (though I am a B/C cup size so not sure how well these work with larger chests) with either 
> 
> a) this tank-top method [here](http://tomstoast.tumblr.com/tagged/binder-testimonials) or 
> 
> b) a swimming costume! I use a not-too-tight swimming costume with shorts legs to bind a lot and it’s honestly pretty comfy even with my issues with restrictive clothing. I think the fact that the tension is spread over my torso/upper thighs rather than being concentrated on my chest has something to do with it? I’m no expert and obviously don’t take my advice as representative (or as medical advice, I am not a doctor!!) because I am only one person, but on the plus side I’m pretty sure actual swimmers must wear them all day sometimes right? PS yes this makes going to the bathroom a pain idc it’s worth it.
> 
> Always feel free to let me know if I have been insensitive/got anything wrong in my work. Always. I honestly appreciate it. But, having said that, please be aware that a fair bit of Steve’s dialogue comes straight from my own personal feelings, so while it is not meant to be either representative of trans men/trans people/people with breasts OR an example of a particularly healthy outlook (I’m self-aware!) it is intended to be accurate to at least some degree.
> 
> If you read this, thank you!! If you also read my horribly long end notes, wow and thank you even more! Feedback is always welcome :)


End file.
